Dhaka - At least two people were killed and scores others injured in fierce clashes between police and garment workers near the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Saturday, police and witnesses said. Police confirmed deaths almost 12 hours after the local media had reported killings during the five-hour running battles in Tongi industrial area, some 30 kilometres north of Dhaka.
"Two bodies were recovered from the troubled area. They are, however, not garment workers," Tapan Chnadra Saha, an officer at Togni police station.
"The cause of death will be revealed only after a post mortem is done," he said.
Earlier, police had denied the deaths.
Local people had claimed at least two people were killed when police fired gunshots on the garment workers demonstration in Tongi, about 30 kilometres north of Dhaka, protesting the authorities decision to lay-off factory workers without paying wages.
They said some 3,000 workers, mostly female, of Nippon Garments Limited took to the street when they found the factory closed and locked in the morning.
They began clashes with police when the law enforcers tried to disperse angry workers who have put barricades on a busy highway connecting the capital and the country's northern part. Workers vandalized a number of vehicles and set some on fire.
The police replied with baton charges, teargas and rubber bullets when the protestors pelted them.
On Thursday, Bangladesh's Commerce Minister Faruk Khan had warned in parliament that it would be difficult to sustain the country's garment sector without finding a solution to the problem of worker unrest.
Bangladesh's garment sector, which earns about 78 per cent of the country's total export revenue, faces frequent unrest over non- payment of wages and workplace safety.
